I  734 


mhm 


\j9f  i  >! « .-il 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE 


FRENCH  AND  AMERICAN  TARIFFS  COMPARED; 


SERIES  OF  LETTERS 


ADDRESSED  TO 


MoNS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIEK, 

MEMBER  OF  THE  COUNCIL  OF  STATE,  ETC.  ETC. 


BY 

HENRY  C.  CAREY 


PHILADELPHIA: 

COLLINS,  PRINTER,  705  JAYNE  STREET, 

1861. 


•  / ' 


LETTERS  TO  3I0XS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER. 


LETTER  FIRST. 

My  dear  sir  : 

At  the  close  of  our  last  interview,  now  little  more  than  two 
years  since,  you  did  me  the  favor  of  presenting  me  with  two 
reports  which  had  just  then  been  made  to  the  Council  of  State, 
in  reference  to  a  proposed  consolidation,  in  the  form  of  law,  of 
sundry  decrees  by  which  changes  had  been  made  in  the  conditions 
upon  which  foreign  merchandise  might  be  received  in  France — 
the  two  subjects  therein  specially  referred  to  being  the  duties  on 
long  wools,  and  upon  iron  pipes.  The  committees  had  been  com- 
posed of  gentlemen  distinguished  by  their  familiarity  with  the 
needs  of  agriculture  and  of  commerce,  and  with  those  of  the  pub- 
lic works.  At  their  head  had  been  placed  the  most  confidential 
of  all  the  advisers  of  the  emperor,  the  government  thus  manifest- 
ing its  sense  of  the  extreme  importance  of  the  questions  to  whose 
examination  their  attention  had  been  invited.  On  his  part  that 
sense  was  manifested  by  his  constant  presence,  and  by  his  own 
most  careful  examination  of  witnesses  with  a  view  to  satisfy  him- 
self in  regard  to  the  one  great  question  which  appears  to  have 
been  ever  present  in  his  mind — that  of  the  absolute  necessity  for 
maintaining  the  duties  at  such  rates  as  should  be  fully  and  com- 
pletely protective  of  that  great  domestic  industry  which,  under  a 
system  even  more  thoroughly  protective  than  that  of  Great 
Britain  had  ever  been,  had  given  to  France  a  foreign  commerce 
four  times  greater  than  had  existed  thirty  years  before,  and  had 
added  so  largely  to  the  value  of  the  land  and  labor  of  the  em- 
pire. At  every  stage  of  tlie  examination,  the  views  of  the  com- 
mittees, and  most  especially  those  of  their  presiding  officer, 
ai)pear  to  have  been  in  entire  accordance  with  those  so  well 
expressed  by  yourself  in  one  of  your  most  recent  works — your 
readers  having  there  been  told — 

That  "every  nation  owed  it  to  itself  to  seek  the  establishment 
of  diversification  in  the  pursuits  of  its  people,  as  Gt;rmany  and 
England  had  already  done  in  regard  to  cottons   and  woollens. 


8368(in 


4  LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER. 

and  as  France  herself  had  done  in  reference  to  so  many,  ai(d  so 
widely  different  departments  of  industry  :" 

Tliat  "  when  it  failed  to  do  so  it  made  a  great  mistake  :" 

That  "combination  of  varied  effort  was  not  only  promotive  of 
general  prosperity,  but  was  the  one  and  only  condition  of  national 
progress ;"  and. 

That  to  favor  the  production  of  such  combination  was  not  only 
"not  an  abuse  of  power  on  the  part  of  the  government,"  but 
was,  on  the  contrary,  the  mere  "accomplishment  of  that  positive 
duty  which  required  it  so  to  act,  at  each  epoch  in  the  progress  of 
the  nation,  as  to  favor  the  taking  possession  of  all  the  branches 
of  industry  whose  acquisition  was  authorized  by  the  nature  of 
things;"  governments  being,  in  your  view,  "only  the  personifica- 
tion of  nations,  and  it  being  required  of  them  that  they  should 
exercise  their  influence  in  the  direction  indicated  by  the  general 
interest  properly  studied  and  fully  appreciated."' 

Than  this,  nothing  as  I  conceive  could  be  more  accurate,  it  being 
a  full  indorsement  of  the  views  of  that  first  of  all  the  statesmen  the 
world  has  yet  produced,  your  countryman  Colbert.  Hume  urged 
upon  the  nation  the  necessity  for  such  a  course  of  action  as  should 
"preserve  its  people  and  its  manufactures."  The  essential  object 
of  Adam  Smith's  great  work  was  the  enforcement  upon  his  coun- 
trymen of  the  idea,  that  development  of  the  domestic  commerce 
was  the  necessary  prelude  to  an  advantageous  foreign  trade.  J.  B. 
Say  taught  his  hearers  that  "  protection  granted  with  a  view  to 
promote  the  profitable  application  of  labor  and  capital,  might  be 
productive  of  universal  benefit."  Blanqui  assured  his  readers  that 
past  experience  had  proved  "  that  a  people  ought  never  to  deliver 
over  to  the  chances  of  foreign  trade  the  fate  of  its  manufactures." 
Rossi  held  it  to  be  undeniable  that  there  were  exceptions  to 
the  free  trade  principle,  and  that  "in  the  conduct  of  a  nation,"  as 
in  that  of  a  family,  sacrifices  needed  to  be  made  in  the  hope  of 
thereby  opening  "  new  roads  to  affluence."  Following  in  the  same 
direction,  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  arrived  at  the  conclusion,  that  indivi- 
duals should  not  be  expected  at  their  own  risk,  or  rather  certain 
loss,  to  introduce  new  branches  of  manufacture,  or  "  to  bear 
the  burden  of  carrying  them  on  until  workmen  should  have  been 
educated  to  the  level  of  those  with  whom  the  processes  had  be- 
come traditional ;"  and  that,  therefore,  protective  duties  might  be 
resorted  to  as  the  least  inconvenient  mode  of  trying  such  experi- 
ments. So  far,  all  these  distinguished  teachers  have  been  certainly 
in  the  right,  but  in  the  enunciation  of  their  views  there  has  gene- 
rally been  exhibited  a  timidity  which  contrasts  most  unfavorably 
with  your  own  frank  and  manly  indorsement  of  the  idea,  that  "  in 

'  Examen  'du  Systeme  Commerciale  connu  sous  lo  noin  du  Systeme 
Protecteur.     Paris,  1852,  pp.  34  to  38. 


LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER.  0 

every  country,  the  day  of  maturity  having  arrived,  there  arises  a 
necessity  in  the  interests  even  of  civilization  for  acclimating  among 
its  people  the  principal  branches  of  manufacture,"  and  that  its 
government  is  then  "  well  inspired  when  seeking  the  establish- 
ment, among  its  people,  of  diversity  in  the  demand  for  human 
service" — that  diversity  being  "  favorable  to  the  advancement  of 
knowledge,"  and  altogether  in  harmony  with  the  capabilities  of 
widely  extended  territories  like  those  of  France,  Germany,  and 
the  United  States. 

French  practice,  as  shown  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Council  of 
State,  of  which  you  are  yourself  so  influential  a  member,  and  your 
own  teachings,  as  well  as  those  of  the  distinguished  economists  to 
whom  I  have  referred,  being  thus  in  such  perfect  harmony  with 
each  other,  it  was  with  great  surprise  I  read,  shortly  after  the 
interview  above  referred  to,  that  you  were  then  arranging  the  terms 
of  a  treaty  with  Great  Britain  in  which  the  free  trade  doctrines, 
so  pertinaciously  urged  by  that  country  on  the  world's  acceptance, 
were  to  be  reduced  to  practice.  That  such  should  prove  to  be  the 
ease  appeared  to  me  to  be  entirely  incredible,  and  glad  was  I, 
when  the  treaty  came,  to  find  that  I  had  been  right,  its  essential 
characteristics  having  then  proved  to  be: — 

I.  A  resolute  assertion  of  efficient  and  complete  protection,  at 
whatsoever  cost  of  revenue  : 

II.  A  nicety  of  discrimination  with  a  view  to  meet  the  actual 
needs  of  French  industry,  such  as  is  almost  without  a  parallel 
in  the  world  : 

III.  A  determination  to  render  the  collection  of  those  duties 
certain,  manifested  by  the  almost  universal  rejection  of  the  ad- 
valorem  system  provided  for  in  the  former  free  trade  treaty  with 
Great  Britain,  when  France  was  flooded  with  British  manufactures, 
invoiced  at  a  third  or  even  a  fourth  of  their  real  value  ;  and 

IV.  A  determination  to  secure  to  French  industry  a  full  sup- 
ply of  raw  materials,  manifested  by  a  great  reduction  of  the 
duties  upon  them,  even  where  they  had  not  been  entirely  abol- 
ished. 

To  call  a  tariff  so  distinguished  a  free  trade  one,  in  the  British 
sense  of  the  word,  would  be  a  manifest  absurdity — there  being  no 
single  part  of  it  that  is  not  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  assur- 
ance given  to  his  countrymen,  some  few  years  since,  by  Mons, 
Baroche,  then  President  of  the  Council,  that  while  it  was  i)roposed 
to  abolish  "  anti((uated  prohibitions,"  the  government  had  de- 
termined that  the  principle  of  protection  should  be  firmly  and 
steadily  maintained.  That  of  free  trade,  as  he  further  told  them, 
had  been  formally  rejected,  as  incompatible  with  the  independ- 
ence and  security  of  the  nation,  and  as  likely  to  be  destructive 
of  its  noblest  manufactures.  The  decision  of  the  Council  then 
announced,  has  now,  as  we  sec,  taken  the  form  of  law,  by  means 


6  LETTERS  TO  MONS    MICHEL  CHEVALIER. 

of  a  treaty  to  which  your  name  is  not  attached,  but  which  is  said 
to  have  been  mainly  negotiated  by  yourself,  and  in  which  your 
own  princii)les  are  so  fully  carried  into  practice  as  to  warrant  the 
admiration  of  all  who  believe  in  the  necessity  for  bringing  the 
plough,  the  loom,  and  the  anvil,  to  work  together. 

Under  a  system  of  protection  more  efficient  and  more  steadily 
maintained  than  any  other  the  world  had  seen,  your  countrymen 
had  placed  themselves  at  the  head  of  the  commercial  communities 
of  the  world,  their  exports  having  grown  from  an  average  of 
500,000,000,  in  the  period  from  1825  to  1836,  to  1,900,000,000 
in  1856,  and  five-sixths  probably  of  that  vast  amount  being  com- 
posed of  the  products  of  their  own  soil,  so  condensed  in  form, 
agreeably  to  the  ideas  so  admirably  propounded  by  Adam  Smith, 
as  to  enable  the  food,  the  wool,  the  rags,  the  silk,  the  fuel,  and 
the  ore,  to  travel  cheaply  and  freely  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the 
world.'  Under  that  system  land  and  laljor  had  much  increased  in 
value,  while  the  government  had  greatly  increased  in  strength, 
power,  and  influence.  Nevertheless,  firm  as  were  the  founda- 
tions upon  which  then  rested  the  whole  of  that  industrial  system 
for  which  the  country  had  been  indebted  to  the  protective  policy 
inaugurated  by  Colbert,  you,  my  dear  sir,  had  deemed  it  neces- 
sary still  to  maintain  protection  at  such  a  point  as  would  give 
to  your  own  people  the  entire  control  of  their  domestic  market. 
Such  having  been  the  case,  the  friends  of  protection  here  had 
reason,  as  they  thought,  for  supposing  that  our  recent  re-adoption 
of  the  iH'otective  principle,  would  meet  with  your  entire  approval, 
as  a  measure  calculated  to  increase  the  productiveness  of  our  agri- 
culture— to  give  value  to  American  land  and  labor — and  to  increase 
our  power  to  contribute  to  the  comfort,  convenience,  and  pros- 
perity of  your  countrymen.  So  much  the  reverse  of  this,  how- 
ever, has  beeii  the  case,  that  we  find  in  recent  journals,  in  the 
report  of  proceedings  at  the  Dublin  meeting  of  the  Social  Science 
Association,  a  denunciation  of  the  tariff  of  the  present  year,  in  the 
following  words  : — 

"  As  you  ai'e  all  here  practical  men,  seeing  with  pleasure  and  thank- 
fulness the  good  which  appears,  but  not  shutting  your  eyes  to  avoid 
perceiving  the  evil,  by  the  side  of  those  happy  changes  which  are  under 
accomiilishment  or  in  preparation,  you  will  not  fail  to  observe  the  facts 
which  are  taking  place  in  the  opposite  direction.  It  is  thus  that  by  the 
side  of  the  treaty  of  commerce  between  France  and  England  your  glance 
is  arrested  with  pain  by  the  Morrill  tariff,  which  the  Northern  IJnited 
States  have  recently  adopted.     But  the  Morrill  tariff  is  born  of  the  war. 


'  The  exports  of  what  is  called  British  merchandise  are  larger  in 
amount,  but  they  are  almost  entirely  composed  of  food  and  other 
raw  materials  brought  from  other  parts  of  the  world,  to  be  converted. 
Great  Britain  stands  at  the  head  of  trading  nations,  but  France  is  chief 
of  the  commercial  ones. 


LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER,  7 

It  is  the  cllild  of  discord.  It  will  not  live.  The  atmosphere  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  will  stifle  it  ;  for  the  atmosphere  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury only  suits  products  of  another  nature,  of  a  more  regular  character, 
more  conformable  to  the  laws  of  harmony,,and  to  the  unconquerable 
want  which  the  nations  feel  to  interchange  the  fruits  of  their  labor.  One 
of  the  finest  sciences  that  man  has  formed,  Geology,  teaches  and  proves 
to  us  that  in  proportion  as  during  the  series  of  the  ages  of  the  earth  the 
atmosphere  purified  itself  and  was  tempered,  there  were  seen  to  appear 
more  perfect  creatures.  The  animals  of  the  first  times,  those  monstrous 
and  hideous  beings  of  which  the  forms,  recovered  and  described  by 
learned  men,  astonish  and  terrify  us,  gave  place  to  animals  less  strange 
and  more  beautiful,  of  an  organization  more  elegant  and  more  refined. 
The  Morrill  tarift'  is  like  one  of  those  ugly  beasts,  such  as  the  Anoplothe- 
rium,  or  the  Plesiosaurus,  which  one  should  attempt  to  rear  iipon  the 
earth  such  as  it  is  to-day.  Vain  attempt !  Powerless  effort !  The  Mor- 
rill tariS"  is  destined  soon  to  perish  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion  of  its 
authors." 

That  you  fully  believed  all  this,  no  one,  my  dear  sir,  who  has 
had  the  pleasure  of  knowing  you,  can  even  for  a  moment  doubt. 
That,  however,  you  have  wholly  misconceived  the  character  of  the 
measure  thus  denounced — that  it  is  far  less  protective,  and  there- 
fore far  less  in  accordance  with  your  own  most  excellent  teachings, 
than  is  that  one  of  which  you  are  said  to  be  the  author — that  it  is 
far  more  of  a  mere  revenue  measure  than  you  yourself  might  wish 
it  should  be — that  it  totally  fails  in  that  nicety  of  discrimination 
by  which  your  own  is  so  much  distinguished — that  it,  therefore, 
throws  far  less  difficulty  in  the  way  of  international  exchanges — 
that  it  abounds  in  those  ad  valorem  duties  by  which  protection 
is  rendered  less  efficient — that  that  efficiency  is  still  further  dimi- 
nished by  the  retention  of  more  and  heavier  duties  on  raw  ma- 
terials— I  propose  to  show,  in  another  letter,  fully  convinced 
that,  as  a  lover  of  truth,  you  will  gladly  receive  the  correction,  and 
as  gladly  aid  in  disabusing  the  public  mind  of  Europe  in  reference 
to  the  charge  so  often  made,  that  the  North  had  sought  to  profit 
of  the  present  disturbances  by  giving  to  the  world  a  tariff  monster 
of  which  it  had  reason  to  feel  ashamed. 

Meantime,  my  dear  sir,  I  pray  you  to  accept  the  assurance  of 
the  sincere  respect  with  which  I  remain, 

Yours,  faithfully, 

HENRY  C.  CAREY. 
MoNS.  Michel  Chevalier. 

Philadelphia,  October  26,  1861. 


K 


LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER. 


LETTER  SECOND. 


Dear  Sir  : 

As  preparatory  to  the  examination  above  proposed,  I  now 
ask  your  attention  to  the  following  comparative  view  of  the  duties 
payable  under  the  Morrill  tariff — the  character  of  which  you  have 
so  exceedingly  misconceived — and  that  Reciprocity  tariff,  which 
you  regard  as  likely  so  much  to  "  benefit  both  France  and  the 
United  Kingdom,"  and  as  ultimately  "destined  to  metamorphose 
the  custom-houses  of  the  world."  * 


Quanti- 
Names  of  Articles.  ties. 

Iron,  pig,  and  old  cast  iron  .  ton. 
Iron,  old  broken  wrought  .  .  ton. 
Iron,  bar  .....  ton. 
Iron,  railroad  ....  ton. 
Iron,  sheet  ....  ton. 
Iron  manufactures ;   pipes  and 

solid  columns  .  .  .  ton. 
Iron  manufac. ;  heavy  wrought  ton. 
Iron  manufactures  ;  small  wares  ton. 
Iron  manufactures  ;  cut  nails  .  cwt. 
Iron  manufactures ;  wr't  nails  cwt. 
Iron     manufactures  ;     anchors, 

chains,  cables 
Iron    manufactures  ;    tubes    of 

wrought  iron,  large 
Iron    manufactures  ;    tubes    of 

wrought  iron,  small 
Steel  in  bars  of  all  kinds  . 
Steel  in  sheets  above  l-12th  of 

an  inch  thick 
Steel  in  sheets  under  l-12th  of 

an  inch  thick 
Steel  tools  in  pure  steel     . 
Steel  sewing  needles 
Steel  pens 
Steel  cutlery 
Steel  firearms    . 
Tin,  pure  beaten  and  rolled 
Tin,  pots  and  pans     . 
Lead,  pigs,  bars,  plates 
Lead,  in  sheets 
Plated  manufactures  of  all  kinds 


ton. 
lb. 

lb. 

lb. 

lb. 

lb. 

lb. 

lb. 

lb. 
ton. 
ton. 
ton. 
ton. 
ton. 


French  duties  under 

the  Reciprocity      U.  S.  duties  under 
treaty  iu  American  the  Morrm  tariflF. 
Money. 

$4  39  $6  00 
6  35  6  00 

13  68  15  00 

13  68  12  00 

25  41  to  $31  28  20  to  $25 


8  30 
17  58 
29  32 

97|c. 
1  46i 


ton.  19  54 
ton.  25  40 


48  85 
1  3-lOc. 


2tc. 
3.'.c. 
8"i  to  17Jc. 

8''c. 

20  ij>  cent. 

21c. 

11  72 

58  62 

5  86 

9  77 
195  45 


11  20 
20  00 
22  40 

1  12 

2  24 

30  to  $33 
44  80 

44  80 

1  ^  and  2  c. 

2  c.  and  15-^0. 

2*  and  l5  ^  c. 
30  "^  cent. 
20  Y'  cent. 
30  'p?  cent. 
30  "^  cent. 
30  ir^  cent. 
10  f?  cent. 
56  00 
22  40 
33  60 
30  ^  cent. 


LETTERS  TO  MONS    MICHEL  CHEVALIER, 


Clocks  and  watches  . 

Clocks  and  movements 

Ores,  iron,  copper,  zinc,  lead,  tin, 

nickel    ..... 
Locomotive  engines  . 
Spinning  machines    . 
Leather,  prepared  skins,  morocco 
Leather  manufactures 
Refined  sugar    .... 
Molasses  ..... 
Linen,    plain,    unbleached,    (7 

grades)  .... 

Linen,  bleached,  dyed,  or  printed 

(7  grades)      .... 
Cotton  tissues,  plain,  twilled  1 

ticks,  unbleached,  weigh-  ylOOsq.  yd 

ing  31  oz.  or  more  to  sq.  yd.  J 
Cotton  tissues,  weighing  2  to  S.j 

oz.  to  sq.  yd.  .         .        lOOsq.  yd 

Cotton  tissues,  weighing  1  to  2 

oz.  to  sq.  yd.  .         .       lOOsq.  yd 

Cotton  tissues,  bleached,  add  to 


French  duties  under 

Quanti- 

tlie Reciprocity- 

U.  S.  duties  under 

ties. 

treaty  in  American   the  Morrill  tariff. 

Money. 

5  ~\jl  cent. 

30  ~^.  cent. 

lb. 

9c. 
free 

15  ■%'cent. 

ton. 

$29  32 

$33  60 

ton. 

29  22 

30  It)  cent. 

lb. 

22 

10  to  30  ~t^  ct. 

ad  val 

.  10  't^  cent. 

30  t'  cent. 

lb. 

3^  cts. 

2  cts. 

1  1-5  cts. 

2  cts.  1j1  gal. 

lb. 

2^  to  35  cts. 

25  'jJ  cent. 

lb. 

3i  to  47  cts. 

30  "jj^  cent. 

0  sq.  yd 

[.$1 

$1 

2  cts. 


ct. 


$2  to  $3. 
4  00 


unbleached    .         .         .         . 

15  "tj*  cent. 

add  ^c.  sq.  yd. 

Cotton  tissue,  printed 

ad  val, 

,  15  t>  cent. 

f  addtoblch'd 
1      10  "t?  ct. 

Raw  cotton         .... 

free 

free 

Flax  and  hemp 

ton. 

$9  77 

$10,  815,  &  835 

Wool,  unmanufaatured 

free 

3  and  9  cts. 
f  25,  30  "P  ct.. 

Tissues  of  pure  wool 

ad  Val. 

15  ~^  cent. 

\    12c.%^lb., 
(.  and  25  "(^  ct. 

Silk  in  cocoons 

free 

free 

Silk  tissues,  hosiery,  lace,  pure 

free 

25  and  30  lt>  ct. 

India-rubber  wearing  apparel    . 

lb. 

15  c. 

20  and  25  t*-  ct. 

India-rubber  boots  and  shoes    . 

lb. 

7.'>c. 

20  ^.  cent. 

Cordage,  cables,  fish-nets  . 

lb. 

2|c. 

2  and  3  cts. 

Beer,  in  addition  to  internal  tax 

gal. 

1 ,'  c. 

15  c. 

Glassware  and  table  glass 

lb. 

3.8  c.  &10'i:^ 

ct. 

25  %^  cent. 

Window  glass,  plain,  plate,  un- 

polished        .         .         .         . 

lb. 

3.8  c.  &  10%! 

ct. 

lto4c.  sq.  foot. 

Glass,  cut          .         .         .         . 

lb. 

3.8c.  &  10  V 

ct. 

30  Ij]  cent. 

The  British  free-trade  policy  looks  to  maintainins:  the  Custom 
House  system  as  a  permanent  source  of  revenue.  Your  Council 
of  State,  wholly  rejecting  the  question  of  revenue,  decided  to  have  a 
tariff  that  should,  in  accordance  with  lessons  that  you  yourself 
had  taught,  stimulate  domestic  commerce,  and  thereby  give  to 
labor  and  land  that  increase  of  value  to  which  alone  they  could 
look  for  power  to  support  the  burden  of  direct  taxation.  Pre- 
cisely such  a  tariff  as  that  they  asked  for,  is  presented  to  us  in 
the  one  a  portion  of  which  is  given  above — the  idea  of  revenue 


10  LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER 

being  most  rigidly  excluded,  and  that  of  protection  being  never 
in  any  manner  allowed  to  be  vitiated  by  it.  Pig  iron — which 
has  in  France  the  character  of  a  raw  material,  sufficient  domestic 
supplies  of  which  can  scarcely  be  obtained — and  pipes — are  ad- 
mitted at  a  rate  of  duty  rather  lower  than  our  own,  whereas 
on  finished  commodities  into  which  the  pigs  can  be  converted, 
they  are  materially  higher.  Thus,  railroad  bars  pay  $13.68 
against  our  $12,  while  sheet  iron,  as  employing  more  labor 
than  the  bars,  pays  six  times  as  much  as  pigs,  and  one-fourth 
more  than  is  paid  under  the  Morrill  tariff.  On  steel,  generally, 
the  duties  are  about  on  a  par  with  ours,  while  the  raw  material 
required  for  its  manufacture  is  admitted  at  a  lower  rate  than  here. 
On  cutlery  20  per  cent,  appears  to  have  been  regarded  as  sufficient, 
whereas  .30  per  cent,  has  been  so  regarded  here.  Tin  is  lower 
than  with  us,  but  manufactures  of  tin  are  higher — the  protective 
principle  being  every  where  most  eflectually  carried  out.  Plated 
wares  are  in  effect  prohibited.  The  charge  on  locomotives 
nearly  resembles  our  own.  Linen  manufactures  are  higher,  while 
flax  and  hemp  are  admitted  at  greatly  lower  rates  of  duty.  The 
Morrill  tariff  increases  the  rates  on  cotton  directly  in  the  ratio  of 
their  fineness,  which  properly  meets  the  condition  of  the  manufac- 
ture here;  whereas  you,  my  dear  sir,  to  meet  a  very  different 
condition  of  things,  put  a  duty  of  one  cent  per  square  yard  upon 
the  coarsest  unbleached,  and  only  one-seventieth  of  a  cent  per 
square  yard  on  the  very  finest.  This,  of  course,  is  because  your 
countrymen  can  safely  defy  competition  in  the  most  delicate  tex- 
tures, and  need  only  to  resist  the  English  importations  of  the 
coarsest.  Again :  in  the  matter  of  printed  cottons,  histead  of 
running  up  an  arithmetical  climax  of  duties  upon  the  unbleached, 
colored,  and  printed,  of  all  grades  of  fineness  and  labor  cost,  as 
is  the  case  in  our  tariff,  yours  fits  your  own  industrial  conditions 
by  heavy  duties  on  the  lowest  and  the  highest  in  our  scale,  while 
guarding  the  prints,  as  it  does  the  coarse  unbleached,  by  an  amply 
protective  rate,  but  leaving  the  finer  intermediate  unprinted  goods, 
in  which  England  cannot  rival  them,  nearly  exempt  from  duty — 
protection  ruling  the  rates  everywhere,  without  regard  to  valuation. 
On  glassware,  mirrors,  and  plate,  S  8-10  cents  per  pound  and 
10  per  cent,  must  give  the  most  complete  protection  against  Eng- 
land, notwithstanding  her  late  improvements.  Glass  showing 
its  qualities  clearly,  the  fine  products  of  France  are  in  no  danger 
of  being  matched  in  market  price  by  inferior  goods.  As  in  the 
ease  of  cutlery,  the  purchaser  can  judge  of  what  he  buys,  and  the 
best  article  of  the  kind  will  hold  the  market  against  all  rivalry. 
Again,  on  cordage  and  cables — the  average  of  duties  in  your 
tariff  is  as  high  as  in  ours — the  rates  of  duty  here,  as  throughout 
the  schedules,  being  in  the  measure  of  the  threatened  competition — 
always  protective,  and  never  turning  aside  for  any  other  object. 


LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER.  1 1 

Having;  studied  all  these  facts,  you  will,  as  I  feel  assured,  admit 
that  you  have  beeu  entirely  misled  in  reji^ard  to  the  Morrill  tariff, 
and  that  it  is,  so  far  as  refj:ards  the  sacrifice  of  revenue  to  protec- 
tion, infinitely  less  perfect  than  is  your  own. 

Coming,  now,  to  the  second  point  to  which  I  have  desired  to 
invite  your  attention — that  of  the  nicety  of  classification  required 
for  giving  to  each  and  every  branch  of  manufacture  the  jjrecise 
protection  that  it  needs — we  find  the  only  case  of  the  kind  in  the 
Morrill  tariff  to  he  that  of  cottons,  and  that  even  there  the  discrimi- 
nations iare  absolutely  as  nothing  when  compared  to  those  of  the 
one  to  which  you  point  as  likely  to  produce  a  revolution  in  the 
commercial  system  of  the  world.  Linens  are  by  us  disposed  of  in 
two  short  lines,  and  both  of  these  are  ad  valorem.  Woollen 
yarns  have  three  lines  where  you  have' no  less  than  thii'ty-six  ;  and 
the  only  counting  of  threads  that  is  required  by  us  is  that  of  four 
qualities  of  cotton,  with  a  variety  of  duties  as  easy  of  calculation 
as  is  the  counting  of  your  fingers.  Our  whole  tariff  is,  indeed, 
simplicity  itself  when  compared  with  the  classification  of  your  own, 
in  which  there  are  no  less  than  one  hiuidred  and  forty  kinds  of 
cotton  yarn,  each  ivith  its  separate  rate  of  duty!  Flax  and  hemp 
yarns,  single  unbleached,  single  bleached  or  dyed,  and  twisted  un- 
bleached, twisted  bleached  or  dyed,  are  put  into  twenty-four  classes, 
and  under  as  many  different  rates  of  duty.  Linens  have  twenty- 
four  descriptions,  determined  by  the  number  of  threads,  ranging 
from  8  to  24  threads  to  five  square  millimetres — these  varieties 
being  run  through  the  several  conditions  of  unbleached,  bleached, 
printed,  and  figured,  with  the  duties  varied  in  every  case;  the  lowest 
at  30  francs  and  the  highest  at  535  francs  per  100  kilogrammes 
(220  pounds  avoirdupois).  Jute  yarns  and  tissues  stand  in  the 
tables  in  equally  numerous  descriptions  and  varied  duties;  and  in 
cottons  the  classification  is  carried  to  the  extent  of  providing  dif- 
ferent rates  for  fifteen  qualities  of  single  unbleached  yarns,  fifteen 
of  bleached,  fifteen  of  dyed,  forty-five  kinds  or  qualities  of  twisted 
in  two  strands,  two  kinds  of  yarn  of  three  threads,  and  forty-five 
kinds  of  warped  yarns,  with  the  duties  varied,  according  to  fine- 
ness, as  has  been  already  said,  no  less  than  140  times — beginning 
with  ten  centimes  and  rising  to  no  less  than  three  francs  per  kilo- 
gramme, or  about  one-quarter  of  a  dollar  per  i)ound.  Of  the  cotton 
tissues,  I  have  given  in  the  table  only  the  coarsest,  the  medium, 
and  the  finest  qualities.  In  the  schedule  there  are  eight  (puilities, 
the  description  of  one  of  which  will  serve  as  a  specimen  of  the 
whole.  It  reads  thus:  "Cotton  tissues  weighing  11  kilogrammes 
or  more  the  100  square  metres,  of  35  threads  or  less  to  the  5  square 
millimetres,  50  centimes  per  kilogramme."  Had  any  such  dis- 
crimination been  attempted  here,  we  should  have  been  assured  that 
the  object  of  the  framers  of  our  tariff  iiad  been  the  utter  anniliila- 
tion  of  international  intercourse,  and  there  would  have  been  a  howl 


12  LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER. 

among  our  British  free  traders  such  as  could  have  found  no  parallel 
in  the  history  of  the  world  since  the  establishment  of  the  first 
custom-house. 

The  great  superiority  of  your  tariff  in  regard  to  the  careful  dis- 
crimination required  for  rendering  thoroughly  efficient  the  protec- 
tion proposed  to  be  accorded,  being  thus  established,  we  may  now, 
for  a  moment,  turn  to  the  third  point  of  difference  to  which  I  have 
invited  your  attention.  There,  too,  we  find  protection  more  com- 
plete, wool  being  admitted  free,  while  with  us  it  is  subjected  to 
duties  of  three  and  nine  cents  per  pound — and  flax  and  hemp  pay- 
ing less  than  ten  dollars  per  ton,  while  by  the  Morrill  tariff  they 
are  subjected  to  duties  ranging  from  ten  to  thirty-five  dollars  per 
ton. 

In  all  this  there  is  surely  nothing  of  the  free  trade  so  strongly 
commended  to  the  world  by  our  British  friends.  On  the  contrary,  it 
is  most  efficiently  protective  throughout  its  schedules,  every  part 
of  which  is  varied  in  precise  accordance  with  the  conditions  and 
requirements  of  French  industry,  and  in  accordance  with  the  pre- 
vious assurances  of  Mons.  Baroche,  when  speaking  as  the  organ 
of  the  Council  of  State,  and  of  the  Emperor  himself  It  is  called 
the  Cobden  treaty,  but  it  should  assuredly,  my  dear  sir,  bear  your 
name,  my  deliberate  opinion  of  it  being  that  it  is  more  perfectly 
in  accordance  with  your  previous  assertion  of  the  duties  of  a 
government  than  any  treaty  that  had  ever  before  been  negotiated. 
The  history  of  the  world  presents  no  record  of  the  existence  of 
any  customs  tariff  conforming  so  exactly  to  the  wants  of  a  com- 
munity, maintaining  legitimate  protection  with  such  entire  and 
absolute  efficiency.  Would  to  Heaven  that  we  had  statesmen  who 
could  give  us  precisely  such  an  one  !  Compared  with  it  the  Mor- 
rill tariff  is  a  construction  of  a  kind  so  rude,  that  we  have  al- 
most reason  to  feel  ashamed  of  having  presented  it  to  the  world 
as  a  protective  measure. 

Believing,  my  dear  sir,  that  you  must  now  be  quite  convinced 
that  the  great  error  of  the  Morrill  tariff,  when  compared  with  your 
own,  is  to  be  found  in  its  mistaken  liberality  towards  foreign  na- 
tions, I  now  propose  to  ask,  for  a  moment,  your  attention  to  a 
brief  comparison  of  some  of  its  provisions  with  those  of  that 
general  tariff  which  long  has  governed,  and,  as  I  believe,  still 
governs,  the  intercourse  between  this  country  and  your  own.  The 
one  says  to  the  people  of  France — "Bring  us  all  the  products  of 
your  soil,  or  of  those  of  any  other  country  of  the  world.  Put 
upon  them  as  much  labor  as  you  please — change  their  form  in 
whatsoever  manner  may  be  most  agreeable  to  you — and  we  will 
admit  them  all  on  the  payment  of  duties  rarely  exceeding  thirty 
per  cent. — those  duties,  too,  ))eing  charged  on  the  ad  vaJorem 
principle,  by  means  of  which  you  have  generally  been  able  to 
reduce  them  to  little  more  than  twenty  per  cent." 


LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER.  13 

The  other  says  to  the  people  of  this  country — "Brmg  us 
wheat  and  cotton,  coal  and  ores,  rags  or  hemp,  pipe  clay,  wool, 
hides,  and  all  other  of  the  rudest  products  of  your  soil  and  labor, 
and  we  will  accept  them  at  nominal  rates  of  duty ;  but  be- 
ware of  doing  anything  whatsoever  towards  changing  them  in 
form.  Labor  abounds  with  us,  and  it  is  our  first  duty  to  find 
employment  for  it,  and  thus  make  a  market  on  the  land  for  all  the 
products  of  the  farm.  On  no  condition  whatsoever  will  we 
admit  your  cotton,  after  you  shall  have  converted  it  into  cloth, 
or  your  hides,  after  you  shall  have  changed  them  into  leather — 
there  being  a  determination  on  our  part  that  you  shall  not  follow 
the  advice  of  Adam  Smith  in  converting  food  and  wool,  or  food 
and  hides,  with  a  view  to  facilitation  of  their  transport  to  any 
part  of  France.  Should  you  undertake  to  send  us  your  food  and 
rags  in  the  form  of  paper,  the  product  shall  be  admitted  only 
on  payment  of  eight  or  ten  cents  per  pound.  Should  you  send 
food  and  clay  in  the  form  of  stone  ware,  the  tax  shall  be  eight 
or  ten  cents  per  pound ;  and,  further,  if  you  send  your  food,  lime- 
stone, coal,  and  iron  ore,  in  the  form  of  a  railroad  bar,  you  shall 
pay  from  twenty  to  thirty  dollars  per  ton  for  the  privilege  of 
selling  it  in  any  of  our  domestic  markets.  The  first  duty  of  a 
government  is  to  provide  employment  for  its  people,  and  that  duty 
we  mean  shall  fully  be  performed. 

"  Further  even  than  this,  should  you  send  us  tobacco,  we  pray 
you  to  recollect  that  we  limit  you  to  a  single  great  purchaser, 
with  the  express  desire  to  buy  it  as  cheaply  as  possible,  and  to 
sell  it  at  the  highest  prices.  The  higher  we  sell  it,  the  larger 
must  be  our  profits,  but  the  smaller  must  be  the  demand  for  the 
raw  commodity,  and  the  lower  must  be  the  price  at  which  you 
will  be  required  to  sell  it.  In  this  manner  we  shall  add  very 
many  millions  to  our  public  revenue,  no  small  portion  of  which 
you  will  be  required  to  pay,  and  thus  shall  we  compel  you  to  con- 
tribute to  the  support  of  the  Ueets  and  armies  required  I'or  our 
defence." 

Such,  my  dear  sir,  is  the  language  of  France  to  America,  and 
it  is  to  such  dictation  as  this  that  the  latter  has  to  this  hour 
submitted.  That  it  should  so  have  done  is,  as  you  must  admit, 
most  wonderful.  That  such  submission,  altogether  at  war,  as  it 
is,  with  the  teachings  of  Adam  Smith,  and  with  those  of  all  the 
eminent  men  to  whom  I  have  referred,  yourself  included,  should 
have  resulted  in  discord  among  our  people,  is  only  what  might 
naturally  have  been  expected,  and  what  I  have  for  many  years 
predicted.  Let  us  hope  for  better  things,  now  that  we  have 
made  one  slight  step,  and  a  very  slight  one  indeed  it  is,  towards 
re-establishing  among  ourselves  a  policy  more  in  accordance  with 
that  estaljlished  for  France  by  the  treaty  recently  so  well  concluded. 


14  LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER. 

As  regards  the  objects  sought  to  be  attained,  there  is  not  even 
a  shadow  of  difference  between  this  latter  and  its  predecessor. 
Both  look  carefully  to  the  one  great  end  of  promoting  diversifica- 
tion in  the  employment  of  your  people,  regarding  it  as  necessary 
to  the  development  of  that  great  internal  commerce  in  the  absence 
of  which  there  can  be  none  of  that  continuity  in  the  demand  for 
human  service  which  is  so  essential  to  growth  in  wealth,  civiliza- 
tion, power,  and  influence.  Widely  different,  however,  are  they  in 
their  modes  of  operation — the  one  accomplishing  by  means  of  care- 
ful discrimination  more  than  previously  had  been  obtained  by  aid 
of  prohibition.  Such,  however,  are  the  changes  everywhere  ob- 
served— the  skilful  surgeon  of  our  day  accomplishing,  by  little  more 
than  the  turn  of  his  finger,  operations  that  to  Ambrose  Fare, 
great  as  he  certainly  was,  but  working  with  the  poorest  instru- 
ments, were  wholly  impracticable  without  severe  exertion  of  mere 
brute  force.  Your  tariff  is  on  a  level  with  the  surgery  of  the 
present  day,  w^hereas  the  one  of  which  you  have  now  complained 
is  so  defective  when  compared  with  it,  as  scarcely  to  be  above  the 
level  of  that  of  the  days  of  Fare  and  the  League. 

Believing,  my  dear  sir,  that  you  can  scarcely  fail  to  find,  in  the 
facts  that  have  been  submitted  for  your  consideration,  conclusive 
evidence  that  you  have  been  seriously  misled  in  your  estimate  of 
our  recent  course  of  action,  and  that  you  will  be  disposed  to  agree 
with  me  in  the  idea  that  better  to  suit  our  tariff  to  "  the  atmo- 
sphere of  the  nineteenth  century,"  we  should  follow  your  example 
in  making  it  more,  and  not  less,  protective  of  the  land  and  labor 
of  the  country,  I  remain,  with  great  regard. 

Yours,  faithfully, 

HENRY  C.  CAREY. 
MoNS.  Michel  Chevalier. 

Philadelphia,  October  28,  1860. 


LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER.  15 


LETTER  THIRD, 

Dear  Sir  : — 

As  has  been  seen,  j^our  tariff  is,  in  most  respects,  far  more  in 
accordance  than  is  onr  own,  with  the  ideas  you  have  so  well  ex- 
pressed in  regard  to  "the  positive  duty  of  governments  so  to  act 
at  each  epoch  of  the  nation's  progress  as  to  favor  the  taking  pos- 
session of  all  the  branches  of  industry  whose  acquisition  is  autho- 
rized I)y  the  nature  of  things" — there  being,  as  I  conceive,  no  case 
on  record,  in  which  an  economist,  become  a  statesman,  has  so 
completely  reduced  to  practice  the  theories  he  before  had  taught. 
In  one  most  important  respect,  however,  our  tariff  is  greatly  more 
defensible,  upon  the  principles  you  have  so  well  enunciated,  than 
is  your  own,  as  I  propose  now  to  show  you. 

The  essential  object  of  protection  is  that  of  bringing  about 
such  combination  of  action  as  will  make  demand  for  all  the  va- 
rieties of  human  power,  both  physical  and  mental,  and  for  all  the 
rude  products  of  the  earth — "agriculture  alone,"  to  use  your 
own  words,  "  being  insufficient,"  and  there  arising  in  every  country 
a  necessity,  in  the  interests  of  human  progress,  for  adding  thereto 
all  the  principal  branches  of  industry,  from  the  making  of  cottons 
and  woollens  to  the  working  of  metals  and  of  mines,  and  to  the 
arts  of  navigation.  "To  that  point,"  in  your  view,  "the  pro- 
gramme is  certainly  right ;"  but  "  Nature,"  as  you  have  further 
said — 

"Has  herself  determined  the  limits  beyond  which  this  diversification 
may  not  be  carried.  It  would  be  absurd  for  England,  or  for  Northern 
Germany,  to  endeavor  to  produce  at  home  the  wines  tliey  drink ;  for  us 
to  try  to  raise  the  cotton  we  spin,  weave,  and  print ;  for  Italy  to  pretend 
to  draw  from  herself  the  ice  with  which  she  seeks,  in  the  heat  of  summer, 
to  cool  her  thirst;  for  Western  p]urope  to  impose  upon  itself  a  necessity 
for  drawing  from  its  own  poor  mines  its  supplies  of  the  precious  metals ; 
or  for  France  to  refuse  to  manufacture  any  tin,  copper,  or  zinc,  but  tliose 
yielded  by  its  own  particuhir  mines.  When  nature,  in  her  caprice,  hag 
refused  to  a  country  so  extensive  as  our  own  an  abundance  of  ores  and 
fuel,  it  would  then  be  an  absurdity  for  it  to  insist  upon  supplying  all  its 
wants  from  the  few  little  veins  of  coal,  or  meagre  deposits  of  ores,  that 
have  been  scattered  oyer  it." 

Such  is  the  completion  of  your  own  programme,  every  part  of 
which  has,  as  you  may  rest  assured,  the  most  hearty  indorsement 
of  every  friend  of  the  system  of  which  you  have  here  shown  your- 
self the  earnest  advocate,  from  the  shores  of  our  northern  lakes  to 


16  LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER. 

the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  It  would 
be  absurd  for  us  of  the  North  to  attempt  to  raise  our  own  cotton, 
our  spices,  or  our  oranges.  Equally  alDsurd  would  it  be  for  Cuba 
or  Louisiana  to  attempt  to  raise  rye  or  wheat,  for  with  every  step 
there  would  be  an  increase  of  difficulty  in  obtaining  the  supplies 
required.  Directly  the  reverse  of  this,  however,  must  be  the  case 
with  those  whose  soils  and  climates  are  fitted  for  the  production 
of  cotton  or  of  wheat,  or  with  those  others  who  have  fuel  and  ore 
in  great  abundance — protection  being  there  sought  with  a  view  to 
facilitate  the  conversion  of  food  and  cotton  into  cloth,  or  fuel  and 
ore  into  iron,  thercl)y  creating  demand  for  human  power,  physical 
and  intellectual,  and  producing  that  "combination  of  varied  effort" 
so  properly  regarded  by  yourself  as  not  only  "promotive  of  pros- 
perity," but  as  being  the  one  and  only  "condition  of  national  pro- 
gress." Protection,  therefore,  may  with  great  propriety  be  resorted 
to  when  it  is  in  accordance  with  "the  nature  of  things,"  but  never 
otherwise.  Such,  my  dear  sir,  being  the  test  you  have  yourself 
established,  we  may  now  proceed  to  an  examination  of  the  ques- 
tion whether  your  tariff  or  our  own  is  most  defensible  when  so 
considered. 

France  has  food,  labor  power,  and  intelligence,  three  of  the  raw 
materials  required  for  the  production  of  cotton  cloth,  but  she  is 
short  of  fuel  and  wholly  deficient  in  the  wool — no  cotton  being 
there  produced.  Determined,  however,  to  profit  of  those  she  has, 
she  protects  the  cotton  manufacture,  in  the  treaty  that  you  are 
said  to  have  negotiated,  by  a  series  of  provisions  so  elaborate  as 
to  be  a  cause  of  wonder  to  all  of  us  Americans  who  have  had  a 
chance  to  study  them,  and  by  her  general  tariff  actually  prohibit- 
ing the  producers  of  cotton  in  India  and  America  from  sending 
their  product  in  any  form  but  that  in  which  it  must  be  sure  to 
make  a  market  for  all  the  raw  materials  she  herself  can  furnish. 
Fully  successful  as  she  has  been  in  securing  to  herself  the  control 
of  her  own  supplies,  she  yet  maintains  protection  at  its  highest 
point,  and  in  its  most  perfect  form,  with  a  view  to  enable  her  to 
supply  the  world  with  her  own  food  and  her  own  labor  in  the 
shape  of  cloths  and  silks — doing  this  to  such  extent  that  she  now 
stands  foremost  in  the  list  of  nations  as  the  largest  exporter  of 
domestic  food,  domestic  labor,  and  high  intelligence.  That  she  is 
right  in  this,  no  one  can  doubt.  That  others  are  wrong  in  not 
following  her  great  example  is  a  fact  about  which  there  can  be  as 
little  question. 

Looking  next  to  the  country  that  has  given  to  the  world  the 
much-abused  Morrill  tariff,  we  find  food  in  such  abundance  that  a 
bushel  of  corn  may  now  be  bought  in  Iowa  for  less  money  than  is 
required  to  pay  for  a  single  yard  of  the  coarsest  cotton  cloth — in 
which  labor  ])ower  is  so  al)undant  that  more  than  half  of  it  is 
wasted  in  the  absence  of  demand  for  its  employment — in  which 


LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER.  17 

intelligence  so  much  abounds  that  most  of  the  great  improve- 
ments of  recent  times  have  there  originated — in  which  fuel  abounds 
to  an  extent  unknown  elsewhere — and,  finally,  in  which  cotton 
grows  so  freely  that  it  might  with  ease  be  made  to  supply  the 
entii'e  demand  of  the  world — all  the  raw  materials  of  cotton  cloth 
thus  existing  there  to  an  extent  to  which  the  world  affords  no 
parallel  whatsoever. 

Such  being  the  condition  of  these  two  countries  in  regard  to 
cotton  and  its  products,  which  of  the  two,  my  dear  sir,  is  acting 
most  in  accordance  with  your  own  principles  in  granting  the  pro- 
tection required  for  taking  possession  of  the  cotton  manufacture  ? 
Is  it  France  that  is  so  much  deficient  in  fuel,  and  so  wholly  defi- 
cient in  cotton  ?  Or,  is  it  this  country,  that  has  both,  and  that 
has,  in  addition,  all  that  France  possesses  ?  As  it  seems  to  me, 
you  can  scarcely  fail  to  admit  that  it  is  the  latter,  and  that  you 
have  been  much  in  error  in  denouncing  as  erroneous  the  feeble 
attempt  that  has  been  made  in  the  Morrill  tariff  to  follow  in  your 
footsteps.  Should  you  desire  any  evidence  of  this,  let  me  beg  you 
to  turn  to  Adam  Smith  and  re-peruse  his  admirable  exhibit  of  the 
advantages  resulting  from  combining  tons  of  food  and  hundred 
weights  of  wool  in  the  form  of  cloth — thereby  enabling  both  to 
travel  freely  and  cheaply  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the  world. 

As  regards  iron,  the  case  is,  as  I  think,  equally  strong — France 
being  largely  deficient  in  both  fuel  and  ore,  while  this  country 
abounds  in  both  to  an  extent  unequalled  in  any  portion  of  the 
earth.  By  your  own  tariff,  nevertheless,  pig  iron  is  loaded  with  a 
protective  duty  seven-tenths  as  great  as  that  complained  of  in  the 
Morrill  tariff".  Make  it  even  ten  times  greater,  and  France  could 
not  then  supjjly  herself;  whereas,  under  even  the  present  moderate 
duty,  this  country' could,  in  a  brief  period,  supply  all  the  demands 
of  the  thousand  millions  of  the  human  race. 

Passing  upwards  from  the  i)ig  to  the  bar,  and  thence  to  the 
various  commodities  made  from  iron,  the  case  becomes  yet  stronger, 
labor  and  fuel  being  the  only  raw  materials  then  required  to  be 
used.  Of  the  last,  France  has  but  little,  and  yet,  because  she  has 
the  first,  you  impose  duties  far  higher  than  our  own.  Should  not 
the  course  of  operation,  my  dear  sir,  be  directly  the  reverse  of  this, 
our  government  imposing  high  duties  with  a  view  to  the  develop- 
ment of  our  vast  internal  wealth,  and  France  opening  her  jtorts 
for  the  reception  of  American  labor,  food,  coal,  and  ore,  wlienever 
they  took  the  form  of  iron  ?  That  to  do  so  would,  with  both  our 
nations,  be  quite  in  accordance  with  your  own  most  excellent  )»ro- 
gramme,  you  must,  I  think,  admit.  If  so,  have  you  not  been  much 
in  error  in  denouncing  the  Morrill  tariff"  as  "  a  child  of  discord" — 
as  a  monster  that  "will  not  live" — as  a  thing  that  must  be  stilled  in 
the  free  "atmosphere  of  the  nineteenth  century, "  and  that  "must 
perish  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion  of  its  authors" — and  which 
2 


18  LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER. 

is  yet  in  an  almost  infinite  degree  less  protective  of  the  material 
interests  of  the  country  than  is  your  own  ?  The  more  you  shall 
study  the  subject,  the  more  will  you,  I  think,  be  disposed  to  arrive 
at  the  conclusion,  that  our  real  error  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
we  have,  in  past  times,  so  much  failed  to  follow  in  the  footsteps 
of  your  countrymen,  and  that,  even  now,  when  we  have  professed 
to  re-adopt  your  system,  we  have  failed  to  take  as  a  model  the 
admirably  protective  treaty  for  which  your  country  is  understood 
to  have  been  so  much  indebted  to  yourself. 

Why,  however,  if  all  the  raw  materials  are  so  cheap  and  abund- 
ant, should  protection  be  here  required  ?  For  the  same  reason 
that  it  has  always  been,  and  is  now,  after  so  very  many  years  of 
thorough  protection,  still  needed  in  France,  as  a  means  of  defence 
against  the  barbarizing  warfare  described  iu  the  following  extract 
from  a  report  made  to  the  British  House  of  Commons,  and  printed 
by  its  order,  but  a  few  years  since  : — 

"  The  laboring  classes  generally,  in  the  manufacturing  districts  of  this 
country,  and  especially  in  the  iron  and  coal  districts,  are  very  little 
aware  of  the  extent  to  which  they  are  often  indebted  for  their  being  em- 
ployed at  all  to  the  immense  losses  which  their  employers  voluntarily 
incur  iu  bad  times,  in  order  to  destroy  foreign  competition,  and  to  gain  and 
keep  possession  of  foreign  markets.  Authentic  instances  are  well  known 
of  employers  having  in  such  times  carried  on  their  works  at  a  loss 
amounting  in  the  aggregate  to  three  or  four  hundred  thousand  pounds 
iu  the  course  of  three  or  four  years.  If  the  efforts  of  those  who  encour- 
age the  combinations  to  restrict  the  amoiant  of  labor  and  to  produce 
strikes  were  to  be  successful  for  any  length  of  time,  the  great  accumu- 
lations of  capital  could  no  longer  be  made  ichich  enable  a  fow  of  the  most 
wealthy  capitalists  to  overwhelm  all  foreign  competition  in  times  of  great  de- 
pression, and  thus  to  clear  the  way  for  the  whole  trade  to  step  in  when 
prices  revive,  and  to  carry  on  a  great  business  before  foreign  capital  can 
again  accumulate  to  such  an  extent  as  to  be  able  to'establish  a  competi- 
tion in  prices  with  any  chance  of  success.  The  large  capitals  of  this 
country  are  the  great  instruments  of  tear  fare  against  the  competing  capital  of 
foreign  countries,  and  are  the  most  essential  instruments  now  remaining 
by  which  our  manufacturing  supremacy  can  be  maintained  ;  the  other 
elements — cheap  labor,  abundance  of  raw  materials,  means  of  communi- 
cation, and  skilled  labor — being  rapidly  in  process  of  being  equalized." 

England  seeks  to  have  raw  materials  at  low  prices,  while  aim- 
ing to  have  high  prices  for  cloth  and  iron.  That  she  may  have 
both,  she  makes  the  terrible  war  above  described,  and  thus  pre- 
vents advance  in  civilization  in  all  the  countries  subjected  to  her 
control.  France  protects  herself  against  it,  and  has  done  so 
steadily,  and  your  recent  most  excellent  treaty  furnishes  proof  con- 
clusive that  she  means  to  do  the  same  in  all  the  future,  knowing 
well  that  diversification  of  pursuits  is  "the  condition  of  national 
progress"  in  strength,  wealth,  and  civilization.  The  result  is 
seen  in  the  wonderful  growth  of  her  commerce,  and  in  her  most 
extraordinary  advance  in  prosperity,  power,  and  influence.  This 
country,  on  the  contrary,  has,  for  the  last  fifteen  years,  permitted 


LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER.  19 

the  subjugation  of  its  farmers  and  planters  to  a  system  under 
which  they  have  been  becoming  daily  more  dependent  upon  British 
traders,  and  with  precisely  the  same  result  that  has  been  realized 
in  every  other  country  of  the  world  that  has  been  either  unwilling 
or  unable  to  protect  itself  against  this  worst  of  tyrannies — destruc- 
tion of  internal  commerce — increasing  weakness — and  growing 
discord  among  the  States,  ending  in  civil  war. 

You,  however,  are  disposed  to  look  upon  the  Morrill  tariff, 
poor  a  copy  as  it  is  of  your  own  most  admirable  one,  as  "  a  child 
of  discord."  Further  reflection  will,  as  I  think,  satisfy  you,  that 
the  war  now  raging  is  but  the  legitimate  child  of  that  British 
free  trade  system  which  is  so  well  described  in  the  passage  above 
presented  for  consideration.  In  proof  that  it  is  so,  I  venture 
to  trespass  a  little  further  upon  your  time,  to  ask  your  attention 
to  the  following  facts,  without  a  knowledge  of  which  it  is  scarcely 
possible  to  arrive  at  a  correct  conception  of  the  causes  of  the  un- 
fortunate contest  now  pending  between  that  portion  of  our  people 
which  does,  and  that  which  does  not,  believe  in  human  slavery  as 
an  institution  given  of  God,  and  to  be  perpetuated  throughout 
the  future. 

The  great  backbone  of  the  Union  is  found  in  the  ridge  of  moun- 
tains which  commences  in  Alabama,  but  little  distant  from  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  extends  northward,  wholly  separating  the 
people  who  inhabit  the  low  lands  of  the  Atlantic  slope  from  those 
who  occupy  such  lands  in  the  Mississippi  valley,  and  itself  con- 
stituting a  great  free  soil  wedge,  with  its  attendant  free  atmo- 
sphere, created  by  nature  herself  in  the  very  heart  of  slavery,  and 
requiring  but  a  slight  increase  of  size  and  strength  to  enable  those 
who  now  direct  it  to  control  the  southern  policy,  and  thus  to 
bring  the  entire  South  into  perfect  harmony  with  the  North  and 
West,  and  with  the  world  at  large.  That  you  may  fully  satisfy 
yourself  on  this  head,  I  will  now  ask  you  to  take  the  map  and 
pass  your  eye  down  the  Alleghany  ridge,  flanked  as  it  is  by  the 
Cumberland  range  on  the  west,  and  by  that  of  the  Blue  Moun- 
tains on  the  east,  giving,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  South  itself,  a 
country  larger  than  all  Great  Britain,  in  which  the  finest  of  cli- 
mates is  found,  in  connection  with  the  laud  abounding  in  coal, 
salt,  limestone,  iron  ore,  gold,  and  almost  every  other  material 
required  for  the  development  of  a  varied  industry,  and  for  secur- 
ing the  attainment  of  the  highest  degree  of  agricultural  wealth  ; 
and  then  to  reflect  that  it  is  a  region  which  must  necessarily  be 
occupied  by  men  who,  with  their  own  hands  till  their  own  lands, 
and  one  in  which  slavery  can  never  ))y  any  possibility  have  more 
than  a  slight  and  transitory  existence.  That  done,  I  will  ask  of 
you  here  to  reflect  what  would  be  now  the  condition  of  this  country 
had  its  policy  for  the  last  fifteen  years  been  such  as  would  have 
tended  towarch /illing  t/>it<  rireat  free  soil  loedge  with  free  ivhite 


20  LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEyALIER. 

northern  men — miners,  smelters,  founders,  machinists — workmen 
of  all  descrijitions — who  should  have  been  raakinji;  a  market  for 
every  product  of  the  farm,  with  constant  increase  in  the  value  of 
land  and  labor,  and  as  constantly  growing  tendency  towards  in- 
crease of  freedom  for  all  men,  whether  black  or  white  ?  Would 
not,  under  such  circumstances,  power  have  made  its  way  to  the 
hills,  and  would  not  iron,  coal,  limestone,  and  copper  have  been 
enabled  to  dictate  law  to  the  cotton  kings? — to  the  men  who  live 
on  the  river  bottoms,  and  live  in  ease  at  the  cost  of  those  of  their 
fellow-men  whom  they  buy  and  sell  in  the  open  market  ?  Could 
we,  by  any  possibility,  have  witnessed  the  present  extraordinary 
state  of  things,  had  the  policy  of  the  country  in  reference  to  do- 
mestic and  foreign  commerce,  in  any  manner  resembled  that  admi- 
rable one  which  finds  its  best  exemplification  in  that  treaty  of 
which  you  speak,  and  of  which  you  are,  to  so  great  an  extent,  the 
author?  Most  assuredly  we  should  not  To  the  British  free 
trade  system,  against  which  you,  my  dear  sir,  have  sought  so  care- 
fully to  guard  your  fellow-citizens,  we  owe  our  present  discord; 
and  that  we  do  so  owe  it,  you  will,  I  feel  assured,  be  prepared  to 
admit,  when  you  shall  have  carefully  studied  the  facts  that  have 
been  laid  before  you. 

That  it  is  in  efficient  protection  we  are  to  find  the  road  towards 
freedom  of  trade,  freedom  of  man,  wealth,  strength,  power,  peace, 
and  civilization,  is  the  lesson  taught  in  those  passages  of  your 
own  work  to  which  I  have  referred ;  and  that  it  has  proved  to  be 
the  certain  road,  is  the  one  that  is  taught  in  a  portion  of  your 
recent  address,  to  which,  in  another  letter,  I  propose  to  invite 
your  attention,  remaining,  meanwhile,  with  great  regard  and 
respect,  Yours,  very  truly, 

HENRY  C.  CAREY. 
MoNS.  Michel  Chevalier. 

Philadelphia,  October  30,  1861. 


LETTERS  TO  MOXS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER,  21 


LETTER  FOURTH. 


Dear  Sir  : — 

The  following  is  the  passage  of  your  Address  referred  to  in 
my  last,  as  furnishing  proof  conclusive  that  the  policy  of  i)rotec- 
tion  initiated  by  Colljert,  steadily  pursued  by  France,  recently  so 
ably  advocated  by  yourself,  and  now  so  firmly  established  by  the 
treaty  you  have  made,  is  the  true  and  only  road  towards  domestic 
and  foreign  peace,  towards  the  full  development  of  human  powys, 
and  towards  au  ultimate  entire  freedom  of  international  inter- 
course : — 

"  The  treaty  of  commerce  between  the  United  Kingdom  and  France 
has  already  given  occasion  to  a  treaty  of  commerce  between  Belgium  and 
France.  In  a  few  weeks  probably  it  will  have  determined  the  signature 
of  a  treaty  of  commerce  between  France  and  the  ZoUverein,  or  at  least 
between  France  and  Prussia ;  for  that  treaty  has  already  been  for  several 
months  under  negotiation.  In  a  short  time,  I  think  I  can  assure  you  of 
it,  we  shall  see  concluded  a  treaty  between  France  and  that  young  king- 
dom, called  to  so  glorious  a  future,  which  the  noble  and  intelligent  sword 
of  the  Emperor  Napoleon  the  Third  and  the  patriotic  perseverance  of  Ca- 
vour  have  raised  from  the  tomb  in  Italy.  Each  one  of  the  States  which 
has  thus  signed  a  treaty  of  commerce  with  France  in  consequence  of  the 
English  treaty,  or  which  will  sign  one,  becomes  a  focus  of  propagation 
for  free  trade  ;  and  in  treating  itself  with  other  States  it  determines  them 
to  propagate  it  around  themselves.  It  is  thus  that  the  number  of  labor- 
ers in  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord  is  continually  increasing." 

Your  countrymen,  my  dear  sir,  have  a  saying  from  which  we 
learn,  that  "whoso  shall  make  of  himself  a  sheep,  will  be  sure  to 
find  wolves  ready  to  devour  him,"  and  all  experience  proves  that 
such  is  certainly  the  case  with  regard  not  only  to  men,  but  also 
to  communities  of  men.  In  the  world  of  international  commerce, 
England  has  always  i)layed  the  part  of  wolf,  while  seeking  to 
induce  the  other  nations  to  take  that  of  sheep — permitting  her 
to  make  of  her  little  island  the  one  and  only  "workshop  of  the 
world,"  to  which  all  other  communities  were  to  be  compelled  to 
send  their  products  in  their  rudest  forms,  to  be  there  changed  in 
form,  and  there  taxed.  Foremost  and  firmest  in  resistance  to 
this  oppressive  system  has  been  France.  Other  nations  that 
hitherto  have  been  disposed  to  play  the  i)art  of  sheep,  have  re- 
cently followed  her  good  example,  and  with  such  ell'ect  that  they 
appear  now  to  be  grouping  themselves  together  for  the  purpose 

2* 


22  LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER. 

of  making  that  resistance  more  effectual;  but  that  any  snch  action 
on  tlieir  part  can  be  construed  into  an  admission  of  the  truth  of 
the  British  free  trade  doctrine,  neither  you  nor  I  can  readily  be- 
lieve. The  ends  they  have  sought  to  attain  have  been — first,  a 
development  of  the  power  of  association  and  combination  among 
their  own  people  ;  second,  a  development  of  agriculture  consequent 
upon  the  creation  of  a  domestic  market  for  the  products  of  the 
farm  ;  and  third,  an  assertion  of  their  right  to  determine  for 
themselves  the  form  in  which  their  products  should  be  exported ; 
and  it  has  been  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  those  views  into 
full  effect  that  they  have  had  recourse  to  protective  measures. 
British  free  trade,  on  the  contrary,  desires  to  prevent  the  growth 
of  association  everywhere,  while  dictating  to  all  the  world  the 
forms  in  which  their  exports  shall  be  made;  and  in  the  pursuit  of 
that  policy  England  has  exhibited  a  steadiness  and  determination 
that  is  wholly  without  a  pamllel  in  history.  That  she  has  re- 
cently abandoned  certain  portions  of  her  programme  is  very  certain ; 
but  as  I  propose,  my  dear  sir,  to  show  you,  not  a  single  step  in 
that  direction  has  ever  yet  been  taken  that  has  not  been  forced 
upon  her  I^y  the  protective  measures  of  other  nations. 

Prohibiting  her  colonists  from  bringing  to  her  markets,  except 
in  their  rudest  form,  any  of  their  products,  she  therel)y  prohibited 
them  from  combination  among  themselves,  while  subjecting  them 
to  a  taxation  for  transportation,  for  changes  of  form,  for  ex- 
changes, and  for  the  support  of  government,  so  oppressive  as  to 
take  from  the  poor  producer,  as  then  estimated  by  British  mer- 
chants, more  than  two-thirds  of  the  total  product  of  his  land  and 
labor.  Prohibiting  them  from  converting  their  rude  products 
into  commodities  required  for  even  their  own  especial  use,  she 
thus  increased  the  quantity  requiring  to  be  transported  to  her 
markets,  to  be  there  converted,  exchanged,  and  taxed.  Prohibiting 
them  from  the  use  of  any  ships  except  her  own,  she  thus  com- 
pelled them  to  pay  to  her,  and  to  her  alone,  the  enormous  amount 
required  for  the  transport  of  so  much  bulky  freight.  Prohibiting 
the  export  of  machinery,  and  the  emigration  of  artisans,  she 
thus  denied  to  them,  and  to  the  world  at  large,  the  power  to 
profit  of  the  great  discoveries  in  regard  to  steam,  and  to  other 
of  the  great  natural  forces,  that  had  then  been  made.  Prohibiting, 
to  the  utmost  extent  of  her  ability,  combination  everywhere,  she 
compelled  Germany  to  send  her  wool — Russia  to  send  her  hemp  and 
flax — India  and  Carolina  to  send  rice  and  cotton — Jamaica  and 
Brazil  to  send  their  sugar  in  its  rudest  state — each  and  every  of 
these  commodities  being  subjected  to  the  payment  of  heavy  duties 
on  their  entry  into  her  ports,  i)reparatory  to  their  re-exportation 
in  a  finished  form  to  the  countries  in  which  they  had  been  pro- 
duced. Occasionally,  and  only  occasionally,  her  tributaries  were 
permitted  to  feed  some  slight  portion  of  the  artisans  she  thus 


\ 


LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER.  23 

employed.  Taxes  on  the  food  tliey  sent  were  added  to  tliose 
on  raw  materials  of  niannfiictnre,  and  the  enormous  amount  tlius 
raised  was  then  appropriated  to  the  maintenance  of  fleets  and 
armies  employed  in  coercing  the  producers  of  food  and  raw  mate- 
rials into  submission  to  a  system  more  tyrannical,  more  destructive 
of  morals,  more  antagonistic  to  civilization,  and  more  in  ojjposi- 
tion  to  all  the  teachings  of  Adam  Smith,  than  any  other  that  had 
existed  from  the  creation  of  the  world. 

"With  time,  however,  there  came  resistance — this  country  setting 
the  example  of  a  determination  to  compel  the  recognition  of 
equality  on  the  ocean ;  a  movement  that  was  followed  l)y  re])eal 
of  the  obnoxious  provisions  of  the  Navigation  Laws.  Following 
in  the  same  direction,  we  find  our  protective  tariff  of  1828  com- 
pelling the  disappearance  of  the  tax  on  cotton — that  of  Russia, 
of  1825,  doing  the  same  by  the  taxes  on  flax  and  hemp — that  of 
Germany,  doing  it  in  regard  to  wool — and  our  own  highly  pro- 
tective tariff"  of  1842  giving  the  coup  de  grace  to  the  restriction 
on  the  import  of  food.  Thenceforth,  all  foreign  nations  were  to 
be  permitted  to  bring  the  raw  products  of  their  various  soils,  and 
to  have  them  so  changed  in  form  as  to  fit  them  for  consumption, 
without  the  payment  of  any  direct  tax  for  the  support  of  the 
British  government — the  indirect  taxation  to  which  they  were  sub- 
jected, enormous  as  it  was,  being  held  to  be  entirely  sufficient. 

Such  is  the  history  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  British  free  trade 
— every  step  in  that  direction  having  been  forced  upon  the  people 
of  England  by  the  adoption  of  measures  of  resistance,  in  the  form 
of  tariffs  adopted  with  the  view  of  carrying  into  effect  your  own 
grand  idea  of  acclimating  among  the  nations  of  the  earth  each 
and  all  the  various  branches  of  manufacture,  and  thus  familiariz- 
ing them  "with  the  working  of  metals  and  of  mines,  with  the 
various  departments  of  mechanics,  and  with  the  art  of  navigation." 
For  the  accomplishment  of  that  great  object,  the  governments  of 
those  several  countries  had  not  been  forced  to  resort  to  any  "abuse 
of  power."  On  the  contrary,  they  had,  my  dear  sir,  to  use  your 
own  words,  only  "performed  a  positive  duty  in  seeking  to  take 
possession  of  all  the  various  branches  of  industry  whose  acquisi- 
tion was  authorized  by  the  nature  of  things,"  and  they  were  being 
in  part  rewarded  by  the  emancipation  of  their  people  from  a  taxa- 
tion of  the  most  oppressive  kind.  Having  jirotected  their  jieople, 
they  had  ceased  to  "make  of  themselves  sheep,"  and  the  danger 
of  becoming  a  prey  to  wolves  had  almost  disapi)eared. 

That  protection  is  the  one  and  only  road  towards  freedom  of 
international  intercourse,  is  proved  l)y  all  the  occurrences  of  the  last 
thirty  years.  Were  further  proof  of  this  here  required,  it  would 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  idea  of  reciprocity  is  found  in  none 
of  the  arrangements  of  England  with  those  states  which  are  either 


24  LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER. 

unable  or  unwilling  to  protect  themselves — those  which  furnish 
siip'ar  and  tea,  coffee  and  tobacco. 

Of  the  amount  paid  by  the  people  of  England  for  sugar,  no  less 
than  £5,000,000  is  taken  by  the  public  treasury.  Were  there  no 
such  claim,  the  quantity  of  money  expended  on  sugar  would  not 
be  in  any  manner  diminished — the  consumption  growing  with  a 
reduction  of  price  that  would  enable  both  producer  and  consumer 
to  profit  of  the  change.  The  effect  of  this  would  soon  exhibit 
itself  in  a  rise  in  the  price  of  the  whole  crop,  giving  to  the  whole 
body  of  producers  probably  six,  eight,  or  even  ten  millions  of 
pounds  per  annum  more  than  they  now  obtain.  Such  being  the 
case,  does  England,  in  her  anxiety  for  reciprocity,  propose  to  accept 
sugar  from  its  producers  at  the  same  low  rate  of  duties  at  which 
she  desires  them  to  receive  her  cloth  and  iron  ?  Not  at  all !  On 
the  contrary,  one  of  the  essential  objects  of  that  war  which  is  so 
well  described  in  the  public  document  given  in  my  last,  is  that  of 
compelling  the  people  of  the  tropics  to  devote  their  exclusive 
attention  to  the  sugar  culture — to  increase  the  quantity  thrown 
upon  her  market — to  diminish  the  price  and  increase  the  consump- 
tion— and  thus  to  enable  her  to  take  a  constantly  increasing  pro- 
portion of  the  product  for  the  maintenance  of  her  government. 
Anxious  to  sell  cloths,  she  makes  a  war  upon  China  which 
closes  with  a  treaty  providing  for  the  admission  of  cottons  and 
woollens  at  very  low  duties,  but  without  the  slightest  suggestion 
of  remission  of  any  part  of  that  enormous  proportion  of  the  price 
paid  by  the  British  public  for  tea  (£5,000,000)  which  is  now  re- 
quired for  public  purposes.  So,  too,  with  tobacco,  which  pays 
another  £5,000,000,  nearly  every  shilling  of  which  comes  from 
the  pockets  of  men  who  are  surrounded  by  great  deposits  of  coal 
and  iron  ore  which  they  cannot  work,  because  of  the  "  determina- 
tion of  British  iron-masters  to  destroy  competition,  and  to  gain 
and  keep  foreign  markets;"  and  who  are,  therefore,  compelled  to 
devote  their  labor  to  the  raising  of  rude  products  for  the  British 
market.  Professedly  anxious  for  freedom  of  trade,  she  so  dis- 
criminates— or  quite  recently  has  so  discriminated — against  refined 
sugar  from  her  colonies,  as  to  compel  her  own  subjects  to  send 
their  products  to  her  ports  in  their  rudest  state.  Anxious,  too, 
for  reciprocity,  when  it  suits  her  purpose,  she  urges  with  all  her 
force  a  treaty  between  this  country  and  Canada,  and  yet  refuses 
to  permit  the  formation  of  a  treaty  of  reciprocity  between  her 
colonists  of  the  West  Indies  and  those  of  her  possessions  on  this 
continent.  Such,  my  dear  sir,  is  the  character  of  British  free 
trade  practice — each  and  every  step  toward  any  real  freedom 
having  been  forced  upon  the  government  by  the  adoption  by  other 
luitions  of  policies  closely  resembling  that  which  France  has  so 
long  i)ursued,  and  to  which  you  have  affixed  your  seal  in  the 
treaty  so  lately  made.     Such  being  its  character,  and  there  being 


LETTERS  TO  MONS.   MICHEL  CHEVALIER.  25 

now — as  always  heretofore — a  manifest  determination  to  "over- 
whelm all  forei.sn  com])etition,"  and  to  accom|)li.sh  this  by  means 
of  a  warfare  of  the  most  destructive  kind,  can  we  rejrard  Great 
Britain,  with  all  her  free  trade  jn'ofessions,  as  any  other  than  the 
wolf  she  always  has  been,  although  now  appearinir  in  the  clothing 
of  the  sheep  ?  As  it  apjjears  to  me,  it  is  (juite  impossible  that 
we  should  do  so. 

By  Englishmen  generally  this  suggestion  may  be  regarded  as 
most  unjust,  and  for  the  reason,  that  they  have  so  long  been  ac- 
customed to  judge  of  every  measure  by  its  ])robable  effect  upon 
their  own  trade,  their  own  ])rofits,  their  own  manufactures,  and 
their  own  power,  as  to  have  become  almost  entirely  incajiable  of 
occupying  any  other  stand  ])oint  whatsoever.  As  a  consequence 
of  this  it  is,  that,  to  use  the  words  of  your  most  distinguished 
countryman,  De  Tocqueville  : — 

"  In  tlie  eyes  of  the  English,  that  which  is  most  useful  to  England  is 
always  the  cause  of  justice.  The  man  or  the  government  which  serves 
the  cause  of  England  has  all  sorts  of  good  qualities  ;  he  who  hurts  those 
interests,  all  sorts  of  defects,  so  that  it  would  seem  that  the  criterion  of 
what  is  noble,  or  just,  is  to  be  found  in  the  degree  of  favor  or  opposition 
to  English  interests.  The  same  thing  occurs  to  some  extent  in  the  judg- 
me:its  of  all  nations,  but  it  is  manifested  in  England  to  a  degree  that 
astonishes  a  foreigner.  Plngland  is  often  accused  on  this  account  of  a 
political  machiavellism  which,  in  my  opinion,  not  only  does  not  exist 
any  more,  but  rather  less  than  elsewhere." 

The  real  charge  to  be  brought  against  her  is  not  machia- 
vellism, but  selfishness  such  as  is  above  so  well  described,  and 
which  wholly  unfits  her  for  taking  the  lead  in  the  work  of  organi- 
zation in  which  your  own  country,  my  dear  sir,  seems  now  to  be 
so  well  engaged.  Of  all  the  countries  of  the  world,  England  is 
the  one  that  has  the  fewest  real  friends,  and  hence  it  is  that  she 
has  so  entirely  lost  her  hold  on  Europe.  How  she  stood,  a  year 
since,  on  this  continent,  even  am"ong  those  who  are  now  soliciting 
her  aid  for  the  destruction  of  this  Union,  may  be  seen  from  the 
following  extract  from  a  speech  of  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis,  now  at 
the  head  of  the,  so-called,  Confederate  States,  delivered  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  less  than  eighteen  months  since: — 

"This  English  teaching,  this  English  philanthropy,  is  to  us  what  the 
wooden  horse  was  at  the  siege  of  Troy.  It  has  its  concealed  evil.  It  looks, 
I'believe,  to  the  separation  of  those  States;  the  ruin  of  the  navigating 
and  manufacturing  States,  who  are  their  rivals  ;  not  the  Southern  States, 
who  contribute  to  their  wealth  and  prosperity.  Yet,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  there  only  do  the  seeds  they  scatter  take  root.  British  inter- 
ference linds  no  footing,  receives  no  welcome  among  us  of  the  South. 
We  turn  with  loathing  and  disgust  from  tlieir  mock  philanthro])y." 

Towards  France,  as  I  I)elieve,  there  exists  no  such  feeling  as 
that  which  is  here  exhibited,  in  any  ])orti()ii  of  the  world;  and  fur 
the  reason,  that  her  position  in  the  world  of  commerce  has  always 


26  LETTERS  TO  MONS,  MICHEL  CHEVALIER. 

been  that  of  the  sheep  which  has  desired  to  protect  herself,  and 
not  that  of  the  wolf  desiring  to  prey  upon  the  sheep.  The  results 
of  this  now  exhibit  themselves  in  the  facts,  that  by  means  of  a 
protective  system  more  striiifjent  and  more  steadily  maintained 
than  any  other  in  the  world,  she  has  been  enabled  to  obtain 
the  admission  into  the  British  markets  of  many  of  the  most  im- 
jiortant  products  of  her  vast  and  varied  industry,  while  retaining; 
for  herself  that  thoroug:h  ])rotection  for  her  own  manufactures 
which  had  before  been  promised  l)y  the  Council  of  State;  and, 
that  she  is  liecoming  from  day  to  day  more  fully  enabled,  by  means 
of  tlie  reciprocity  system,  to  brino;  to  act  in  concert  with  her,  those 
of  the  countries  of  continental  Europe  whose  policy  has  recently 
been  most  in  accordance  with  her  own — thereby  bringing  the  sheep 
to  act  together,  and  thus  enabling  them  more  thoroughly  to  repel 
the  wolf's  attacks.  The  idea  is  a  grand  one — it  being  the  organi- 
zation of  Europe  at  large  in  opposition  to  that  system  which  looks 
to  having  but  a  single  workshop  for  the  world.  Fully  carried  out, 
it  cannot  fail  to  result  in  placing  France  in  the  lead  of  both  the 
political  and  the  commercial  world. 

French  commercial  policy  tends  thus  to  the  production  of  union 
between  France  and  the  advancing  communities  of  the  earth,  and 
brings  with  it,  as  you  so  properly  say  in  your  Address,  "the  thought 
of  mutual  approximation  and  of  harmony  among  the  most  civil- 
ized nations" — that  is,  of  those  nations  which  have  most  adopted 
your  own  admirable  ideas  as  to  the  duty  imposed  on  governments 
so  to  act  as  to  secure  the  taking  possession  of  all  the  various 
Ijranches  of  industry  for  which  they  are  fitted,  and  thus  to  pro- 
mote that  diversification  in  the  pursuits  of  their  people  which  is 
required  for  the  production  of  harmony  within,  and  strength  for 
resistance  to  all  attacks  from  without.  British  policy,  on  the  con- 
trary, tends  to  the  prevention  of  any  movement  in  that  direction, 
and  hence  it  is,  that  in  all  the  nations  subject  to  it,  we  witness 
nothing  but  growing  discord  at  home,  with  steady  decline  in  the 
power  for  self-defence,  the  latest  proof  of  this  being  furnished  in 
the  recent  history  of  these  United  States;  the  Germanic  Union, 
on  the  contrary,  furnishing  the  most  conclusive  evidence  of  the 
advantages  to  be  derived  from  moving  in  the  direction  indicated 
by  France. 

Thirty  years  since,  Northern  Germany  presented  to  view  a  con- 
geries of  independent  states,  various  in  their  sizes  and  widely  dif- 
ferent in  their  modes  of  thought  and  action.  Small  as  they  were, 
each  had  its  little  custom-houses,  and,  as  a  necessary  consequence, 
tliere  was  but  little  domestic  commerce,  and  absolutely  no  common 
bond  of  union.  Prohibited  by  England  from  obtaining  machinery, 
their  people  found  themselves  compelled  to  send  their  food  and  their 
wool  to  tiiat  country  in  search  of  the  spindle  and  the  loom,  and 
there  to  submit  to  severe  taxation  as  a  condition  i>recedent  to  the 


LETTERS  TO  MONS.  MICHEL  CHEVALIER.  27 

conversion  of  the  two  into  cloth,  to  be  then  retnrned  to  the  place 
from  whence  the  materials  had  come,  and  to  be  worn  bj'^  those  to 
whose  labors  their  production  had  been  due.  Food  and  wool  were, 
of  course,  verj'  cheap,  while  cloth  was  very  dear,  and  the  farmer 
very  badly  clothed.  A  better  day,  however,  was  then  close  at 
hand — stern  necessity  having  compelled  the  formation  of  new 
arrangements  which  gradually  took  the  form  of  a  great  Customs 
Uuion — embracing  35,000,000  of  people — within  which  commerce 
was  to  be  absolutely  free.  Without  its  limits  trade  was  to  be 
subjected  to  such  restrictions  as  were  deemed  to  be  required  for 
carrying  into  effect  the  grand  idea  of  "  acclimating"  among  the 
German  people  "the  principal  branches  of  industry,"  and  "adding 
to  woollens  and  cottons  all  that  might  be  required  for  rendering 
them  familiar  with  the  working  of  metals  and  mines,  and  with  the 
arts  of  navigation" — in  full  accordance  with  the  ideas  that  you, 
ray  dear  sir,  have  so  well  expressed.  Under  the  system  thus 
inaugurated,  the  people  gradually  grew  in  strength  and  power — 
each  and  every  stage  of  their  growth  being  attended  by  a  disap- 
pearance of  some  of  the  restrictions  under  which  they  before  had 
suffered.  First,  came  permission  to  purchase  machinery  in  Eng- 
land. Next,  the  English  duties  on  wool  disappeared.  Again, 
the  market  of  England  was  opened  to  their  food.  With  each  suc- 
cessive stage  of  progress  towards  commercial  freedom,  there  came 
a  diminution  in  the  necessity  for  exporting  raw  materials,  and  an 
increase  in  the  power  to  export  finished  commodities,  with  steady 
increase  in  the  prices  of  food  and  wool  as  compared  with  those  of 
cloth  and  iron,  and  a  constant  increase  in  the  productiveness  and 
value  of  German  labor  and  land.  With  each,  there  came  an  in- 
creased desire  for  the  formation  of  a  closer  and  more  intimate 
union  than  that  which  then  existed.  With  each,  the  government 
grew  in  strength  for  resistance  to  aggression  from  abroad — that 
strength  having,  within  the  last  three  years,  manifested  itself  to  an 
extent  that  could  scarcely  have  been  anticipated,  even  by  those 
who  had  most  carefully  studied  the  Germanic  movement.  Here, 
as  everywhere,  my  dear  sir,  enlightened  protection  has  proved  to 
be  the  road  towards  strength  and  independence. 

Thirty  years  since,  the  American  Union  exhibited  a  scene  of 
prosperity,  the  like  of  which  had  never  I)een  known — a  thoroughly 
protective  tariff  having  largely  aided  in  developing  the  industry  of 
the  country,  while  so  rapidly  filling  the  public  treasury  as,  three 
years  later,  to  compel  the  entire  extinction  of  the  public  debt. 
Always  turbulent.  South  Carolina  was  then  as  anxious  for  a  dis- 
solution of  the  Union  as  she  has  recently  })roved  herself  to  be, 
but  so  strong  was  then  the  attachment  to  the  Union  that  she 
could  find  no  second.  Three  years  later,-  the  15ritish  free  trade 
system  was  re-inaugurated;  and  since  then,  with  the  exception 
only  of  the  years  from  1842  to  1847,  our  course  has  been  dictated 


28  LETTERS  TO  MONS.   MICHEL  CHEVALIER. 

to  US  by  the  class  of  men  which  thrives  upon  tlie  profits  of  trans- 
portation, and  desires,  therefore,  that  all  our  products  shall  be 
exported  in  the  most  l)ulky  form.  Fifteen  years  have  now  elapsed 
since  we  last  abandoned  that  policy  to  the  steady  pursuit  of  which 
France  owes  her  present  slrenfj^th.  With  each  and  every  of  those 
years,  the  relations  of  American  slavery  and  British  free  trade 
have  been  becoming  more  close  and  intimate.  With  each,  there 
has  been  an  increasing  alienation  of  the  several  portions  of  the 
Union,  and  for  the  simple  reason,  that  with  each  there  has  been 
a  diminution  of  the  jiower  to  n^aintain  domestic  commerce, 
accompanied  by  an  increase  in  the  necessity  for  looking  to  Eng- 
land as  the  only  outlet  for  those  rude  products  of  our  soil  which 
we  have  not  been  allowed  to  manufacture.  Having  thus  made 
of  ourselves  sheep,  the  wolf  stands  now  ready  to  devour  us  so 
soon  as  a  fitting  opportunity  for  so  doing  shall  be  presented. 
Anxious  to  pass  from  that  position,  and  to  take  once  more  our 
true  one,  we  have  now  established  the  Morrill  tariff,  and  although, 
as  a  protective  measure,  it  is  but  a  very  feeble  imitation  of  your 
own,  as  well  as  of  those  to  which  your  German  and  Belgian  neigh- 
bors owe  their  [)resent  wealth  and  strength,  it  cannot  fail,  as  I 
think,  ultimately  to  bring  about  a  state  of  things  that  shall  fit  us 
for  association,  on  a  footing  of  reciprocity,  with  all  those  civilized 
countries  where  the  i)lough,  the  loom,  and  the  anvil  are  made  to 
work  together. 

The  raising  of  raw  material  for  distant  markets  is  the  proper 
work  of  slaves  and  savages,  and  yet  it  is  to  that  work  to  which 
British  policy  would  restrict  the  nations  of  the  world.  Hence 
it  is,  that  slavery  and  British  free  trade  have,  in  this  country, 
always  worked  together,  and  hence,  too,  it  is,  that  there  is,  at 
this  moment,  so  strong  a  pro-southern  tendency  in  the  general 
British  mind.  The  more  the  tendency  towards  converting  those 
raw  products  into  finished  commodities — the  greater  the  tendency 
towards  the  adoption  of  your  own  most  excellent  doctrines — the 
greater  l)ecoraes  the  power  of  both  communities  and  individuals 
to  rise  from  the  condition  of  slaves  to  that  of  freemen.  French, 
German,  and  Belgian  i)olicies  look  in  that  direction,  and  hence  it 
is  that  there  is  so  general  a  pro-northern  tendency  in  the  mind  of 
Continental  Europe.  That  in  this  respect  your  feelings  are  in 
full  accord  with  those  of  your  countrymen  generally,  I  feel  very 
certain,  and  therefore  it  is,  that  I  cannot  but  hope  that  fur- 
ther examination  of  our  recent  tariff  may  lead  you  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  its  authors  are  entitled  to  the  gratitude  of  every  friend 
of  civilization  and  of  freedom. 

That  there  is  a  perfect  harmony  of  all  real,  permanent,  and 
well  understood  international  interests,  I  feel  well  assured,  and 
equally  well  am  I  satisfied  that  the  day  is  not  far  distant  when 
you,  and  all  other  of  the  enlightened  men  of  continental  Eu- 


LETTERS  TO  MONS.   MICHEL  CHEVALIER.  29 

rope,  must  arrive  at  the  conclusion,  that  the  interests  of  tlieir 
respective  countries,  as  well  as  those  of  freedom,  would,  in  the 
past,  have  been  much  promoted  by  our  permanent  adoption  of  the 
policy  of  which  France  has  so  long  been  the  chief  exponent,  and 
by  our  absolute  and  determined  rejection  of  that  barl)arizing 
system  which  England  seeks  to  force  upon  a  reluctant  world — 
and  that  in  the  establishment  of  our  present  tarifl',  we  have  made 
a  move  in  the  right  direction. 

Begging  you  to  excuse  my  several  trespasses  upon  your  kind 
attention,  and  hoping  that  you  may  live  to  see  the  time  when  the 
whole  of  continental  Europe  shall  be  united  in  the  formation  of 
such  a  protective  union  as  appears  to  be  indicated  by  your  Address, 
I  remain,  my  dear  sir,  with  great  esteem  and  regard, 
Yours,  very  trulv, 

HENRY  C.  CAREY. 
MoNS.  Michel  Chevalier. 

Philadelphia,  October  31,  1861. 


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